Supreme Court of the United States

On June 18, 2020, in the case Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, the Supreme Court held in a five-to-four decision that the reasoning the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered in support of its decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative was inadequate and therefore violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The Supreme Court’s decision means that, at least for the time being, the DACA initiative will remain in place, offering the prospect of continued relief from removal and work authorization to the approximately 650,000 current DACA recipients and apparently also to eligible childhood arrivals who have not previously enrolled in the program. The decision, however, is limited in particular respects. It does not prevent the Trump Administration from taking new action to rescind DACA—indeed, the decision reaffirms that the Administration has power to do so, so long as it supplies adequate justification under the APA. The decision also does not address whether DACA itself is legal; instead, it goes no further than to hold that, in rescinding DACA, DHS failed to think through important issues about the available policy options and the interests of current DACA recipients.